US President
Biden jokes about mental state
“I mean, I’m an older man, and I know what the hell I’m doing”: Joe Biden. photo
© Matt Rourke/AP/dpa
Humor instead of anger: A few days ago, Joe Biden reacted to doubts about his mental state with a public tantrum. That didn’t go down well. Now he’s trying a different approach.
After his recent angry reaction to doubts about his mental fitness, US President Joe Biden is now trying to approach the topic in a joking manner.
During a speech in Washington on investments and infrastructure, the 81-year-old tried to make a joke about what was, for him, a politically serious matter. “I know I don’t look it, but I’ve been around for a while,” the Democrat said, pushing. “I still remember that.” The audience responded with laughter and applause.
Last Thursday, the publication of an investigative report into the affair surrounding Biden’s storage of secret documents caused a great stir because the Democrat was portrayed in the report as a doddering old man – among other things, as a “well-meaning older man with a poor memory”, whose ability to remember is “significantly limited”.
One mistake after another
Biden appeared visibly upset in front of the press on Thursday shortly after the report was published to assert that his memory was completely “fine.” “I mean, I’m an older man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden said there, among other things. During his angry appearance, he immediately made the next embarrassing mistake, namely when he made Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi head of state of Mexico. All of this brought him a lot of ridicule – and new political attacks from the Republicans.
Biden is the oldest US president ever and wants to run for a second term in the upcoming election in November. His old age is generally the biggest problem for his re-election campaign, as he regularly makes slips of the tongue and small faux pas that open up political targets. The fact that a special investigator from the Justice Department expressed doubts about the president’s mental state in an official report has particular explosive impact on the election campaign.